Yea, I've heard this argument before but I don't think it addresses the problem. He said that you would be judged (His word) for these thoughts. This is thought-crime. The context is judgement for murder in which Jesus adds that you won't just get judged for murder but also for anger (and other thoughts) alone.
Yes; this is just another side of the coin relative to what I said in my previous post. Let us run a little thought experiment, here- and
please read all of it before you respond-
Suppose we have three people: Person A, Person B and Person C. Person A and Person B both hate Person C, and they hate him with equal severity and have identical inclination toward him, meaning that either one would be likely to act in the same way if put in the same situation relative to Person B. Seeing that he has made such bitter enemies, Person B leaves town, presumably never to be seen by persons A or B again.
Person A truly does never see person C again. Person B, however, goes out on a road trip and, while passing through a suburb, happens to see none other than Person C crossing the street ahead of him. He finds himself overwhelmed with rage, steps on the gas pedal, runs Person C down and kills him.
What would you say, then? Is Person A a "better" man than Person B? If one can assess only what they have outwardly done (as with, say, human law), then Person B obviously appears the worse of the two. However, the same feelings and thought processes which drove Person C to commit the murder are equally present in Person A; both are equally murderous
at heart, even though only one is a murderer in outward deed. Ultimately, then, would it not be the case that, although only one of them is a murderer to human eyes,
the state of both individuals' souls is the same?
The thoughts and feelings of anger and hatred are the tree; crimes, including murder, are but their fruits. It
is morally wrong to harbor and nurture hateful and destructive thoughts and feelings. Now, I think your problem here is that you are conflating the spiritual with the civil. Human beings cannot judge one another's souls- indeed, in the very same speech from which our "anger/murder" tangent is drawn, Jesus pointedly tells his followers, "Judge not, that you not be judged; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned."
Humans can only rightly assess the outward actions of a person toward others; the
judgment of one's soul can only properly be undertaken by a being who knows what is in all men's hearts.
First, the obvious issue for a literal hell is that it's self-evidently evil to have someone tortured forever for simply not believing. The same goes for even rejecting Jesus in the instance that you do come to believe in the existence of Yahweh. In the case of crimes, not even someone like Hitler deserves eternal torment. No matter what, no matter what your crime or what your belief (or lack thereof), humans are not capable of doing anything which deserves eternal torment. Period. The reverse simply cannot be defended.
Okay, since by "literal hell," you evidently mean "hell-that-consists-of-ceaseless-conscious-torture," I have already made explicit that I am
not defending your "literal hell," nor do I think Jesus does so in the New Testament (see my previous post for details). However, I do wish to point out that the punishment (exact content aside) is
not administered "for simply not believing."
I don't think one needs to go any further on eternal torment but it gets worse. If the Christian deity is all-knowing, which most claim is the case, then he created the non-christian knowing full well that this person was going to suffer eternal torment before Dr. Paul
even delivered him/her. It is literally the case that the deity in question has created someone for the end purpose of torturing him/her forever. Above I talk about how there is nothing anyone can do to be worthy of eternal torment but this is the only thing I can think of which would be worthy of such a punishment.
Here, you appear to be operating from the premises of a strict mechanistic determinist worldview- in other words, you believe that all of our reality consists in one gigantic chain reaction of events which, once set in motion, can only unfold in one way. Under this construction, it is true that knowing everything about the existing state of reality should imply complete certainty of the outcome of all future events, and that the impression you and I have that certain things are "up-in-the-air," so to speak, is simply an illusion created by our insufficient knowledge. This is, of course, the dominant understanding in our culture, and the one you have no doubt encountered in most theological discussions, but I wish to point out that it is not the
only understanding. Suppose, for a moment, that genuine indeterminacy truly does exist- in other words, that some events are not exhaustively settled in advance, but depend on variable factors (perhaps, say, free will, for example) which have the genuine (rather than illusory) potential to turn out more than one way. In this scenario, a being cognizant of all truths (God) would know some future events only in terms of possibilities; he would know all possible outcomes, but not necessarily which outcome "is going" to occur, since there would simply
be no hard existing truth to such a proposition. For example, if it is indeterminate whether or not Jeff will go to the dance with Suzy, then God knows that Jeff
might go to the dance with Suzy or
might not, and knows every possible scenario proceeding from the current status of reality in which they do or do not go to the dance together.
One might ask, of course, how it could be possible to make prophecies if some future events remain indeterminate. To this, I reiterate that God would still be aware of all possible outcomes; certain events might occur under every one of these possible outcomes, meaning that a reliable prophecy could still be rendered. For example, it may be the case in a given situation that under absolutely any possible course of events which could proceed from the current state of affairs, the Temple will fall, and thus that an all-knowing God can prophesize the fall of the Temple in advance with authority.
As far as annihilation is concerned, yea, I suppose it's favourable over eternal torment, but don't tell me that God is moral for destroying me for simply not being pursuaded that he exists. Some may say that he created me and owns me and thus he can discard me like a banana peel but we're not banana peels
. We are sentient beings, we have hopes, dreams, interests, loves, feelings etc. etc. No-one here would argue that, irrespective of God's existence, we as parents could dispose of our children simply because we created them and own them
Here, you appear to be responding to Christian exclusivist theology, to which I do not altogether adhere, but even under that understanding, God would
not be destroying you "for simply not being persuaded that he exists." Rather, he would be destroying you for committing immoral acts (cruelty, callousness toward others, etc.); I do believe even most Christian exclusivists would acknowledge that an entity who was unaware of God's existence
but was sinless would not face punishment.
I think your parental analogy fails on several fronts. Parents do not "own" their offspring, but rather are their temporary stewards, and are biological forebears, not omniscient moral arbiters.
For what it's worth, if God did indeed exist and I was stood infront of him, I don't ask for Heaven, I don't ask for immortality (I fear such a thing would be a curse), I just ask to stay alive until I don't want to stay alive. I don't think I'd object to be punished for any wrongdoings I've commited against others. I've hurt the feelings of others, I've hurt people physically but I've never annihilated anyone so I don't think it'd be fair to be annihilated
...But then I am me and perhaps I am biased
This does strike me as a bit presumptuous and self-righteous. Do you know that the net sum of your misdeeds does not amount to more than a murder? Why, specifically, should you be entitled to eternal life (since "life-until-you-chose-to-die" would plainly imply a
right to live forever, just as "ownership-until-you-divest-yourself-of-it" implies the
right to keep an item indefinitely)?
Overall, it appears to me that your exposure to Christianity has largely been limited to the variety common among American evangelicals, and that you have not looked into alternative takes on the controversial theological issues. As a Ron Paul supporter, you should certainly be aware that what is popularly seen as "orthodox" is not always correct, and does not always reflect an accurate reading of a given text or interpretation of a set of doctrines or principles. It is my view that these folk are as wrong theologically as they are politically.
For some good reading on schools of Christian thought such as Annihilationism, Open Theism and Inclusivism, see the likes of Greg Boyd (who, by the way, has quite a libertarian/anti-government outlook), Clark Pinnock, and C.S. Lewis (at least on the latter issue).
